Only Nuclear Power Can Save Humanity

What is the alternative?

Solar, wind, and tidal, are intermittent. Geothermal is dirty and requires extensive maintenance.

Electric generation, no matter the form, ignores transportation, especially by air. What replaces that?

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How does that work?

 

And there is the main problem with nuclear power, it's based on the uranium cycle because the technology was originally designed to produce nuclear weapons, producing power was an offshoot.

The thorium cycle of nuclear power produces no bomb material, and the waste products decay away in hundreds of years, rather than thousands of years.
The cost of production of the fuel and reactors is higher than that of the uranium based fuel cycle.
But the fuel is more abundant by an order of magnitude, the designs are safer to operate, and the cost of disposal of spent fuel should prove significantly less expensive.

So here is an alternative with thousands of years worth of fuel available, that is safer, cleaner and possibly economically superior when taking into account all the costs, and does not have the weapons proliferation problem associated with it.
It's not fusion, which is theoretically the best, but still a far off solution, more of a 22nd Century thing.

Demonstration plants were built and operated, but all funding ended in 1973.
It's technology that needs work, but is still a lot closer to commercial applications than fusion by a half century at least.

 

This ^

China and India are investing heavily in thorium and Bill Gates, who does not spend his money frivilously, is throwing a billion dollars into thorium. Fusion will not be scalable for several decades and it won't be economical for even longer than that. The capital investment for a fusion plant is obscene compared to other sources of power so it won't be usuable world wide for quite some time.

 

Making the grid more efficient would save a lot of energy.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/yankowitz1/

 

Didn't really answer the questions....

At best, superconducting cables only save half the loss. What is the initial cost to rebuild the grid with superconductors, including the exotic mat5erials that super conduct a liquid nitrogen temps, the nitrogen liquefiers, and the maintenance?

Any idea what happens to any line that loses cooling?

Converting coal to natural gas would half the CO2 load for far less cost. Installing natural gas generators in homes and businesses and using the lost heat to heat water and space could cut that in half. Harvesting methane hydrates would be using renewable energy.

 

My answer is this: Nuclear energy has a number of useful applications, aircraft carriers, submarines, scientific/medical research... etc. When nuclear technology has evolved to the point where an accident or natural disaster won't have consequences like Chernobyl or Fukushima then I will become an avid supporter of nuclear energy.

 

How many people have been killed, injured, or sickened, per MWHr for all energy sources, including green sources? Your concern about nuclear is more emotional than factual.

Nuclear, in the US, hasn't been allowed to change. How does it improve while keeping everything the same?

 

That is true but in reality it's based upon nuclear fusion and not nuclear fission. We're not quite there yet with nuclear fusion but we're working on it. In the meantime there is a valid pragmatic need to employ nuclear fission in the meantime.

At the same time there are many other issues that need to be addressed related to AGW.

We need to require all existing coal-fired electrical power plants to convert to clean coal technology that will reduce atmospheric pollution in the US by about 30%-40% as coal is the number one cause of air pollution. This technology is available "off the shelf" and does not significantly increase the cost of electrical production.

We also need to address reforestation that is the primary "carbon-sink" that consumes atmospheric CO2. Illegal deforestation in the Amazon is a huge problem today that must be stopped and those lands replanted.

 

Your denial of the danger is more emotional than factual.

 

The Lawrence Livermore Ignition Facility has had recent success but is still a long way to a constant, stable fusion reaction. I believe it is on the horizon. I don't believe there is any such thing as 'clean coal' it is all radioactive and emits radioactive particles into the atmosphere 24/7, 365 days a year. Nuclear fission plants would be far more environmentally sound.

Many hectors of deforestation has taken place due to the foreseen demand for corn as an alternative fuel.

 

Prove that.

Here is the type of data I keep seeing.

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull211/21104091117.pdf

 

Very compelling, you've convinced me that nuclear power is completely safe. In fact I think we should consider adding uranium to municipal drinking water instead of chlorine and fluoride. Uranium should kill any bacteria and would probably even prevent tooth decay.

 

Interesting when you measure risk based on the total cycle and based on units of energy output. Of course risk comparison won't be near complete until you factor in things like the risk of global warming and ocean acidification. The part it contributed to Sandy for instance is not factored in.

 

It is absolutely true that there is no such thing as "clean coal" but the fact that up to 40% of coal pollution could be stopped almost immediately by employing "clean coal" technology (that the coal industry advocates) but hasn't been done is inexcusable.

Yes, nuclear fission reactors can effectively reduce pollution today but we must realize this is a Band-Aid "fix" to the problem. Nuclear fusion is the solution as it produce pollution free energy without the residual radioactive waste of nuclear fission. We need to anticipate the future of nuclear fusion being a viable energy source so it would, for example, be silly to heavily invest in nuclear fission power plants that could easily be obsolete in a decade or so. The day that nuclear fusion becomes viable all nuclear fission plants would logically be shut down as expeditiously as possible.

It's not sensible to over invest in technology today that will soon be obsolete. Some investment makes sense but we need to be prepared to absorb the financial loss when its replaced. We can amortize the cost of construction over 40 years for something likely to be replaced in 20 years so the cost of nuclear power is higher than in the past where reactors did last 40 years.

This is not an argument against nuclear fission which is far safer today than ever before but it is a pragmatic consideration related to expenditures for it today. The closer we come to nuclear fusion the less financially viable nuclear fission becomes.

 

That tilts further in the favor of nuclear.

 

Your "argument" is drifting......

 

Your "argument" was so compelling that I am now firmly convinced that we should just do away with all that wind and solar BS and replace it with nuclear energy. That way the power companies can control all the energy.

 

We could do away with energy all together, and eliminate all the deaths and illness associated with power generation.

The billions will die from starvation, will die in the comfort of a cleaner world.

 

"Clean coal" technology does not address the radioactivity left over in its ash.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

It's not sensible to over invest in technology today that will soon be obsolete. Some investment makes sense but we need to be prepared to absorb the financial loss when its replaced. We can amortize the cost of construction over 40 years for something likely to be replaced in 20 years so the cost of nuclear power is higher than in the past where reactors did last 40 years.

This is not an argument against nuclear fission which is far safer today than ever before but it is a pragmatic consideration related to expenditures for it today. The closer we come to nuclear fusion the less financially viable nuclear fission becomes.[/QUOTE]

I tend to agree with you on this if your time frames are accurate.

 

No argument but with clean coal technology most is captured as opposed to being spewed into the atmosphere like it is today. Of course it comes no where near the radioactive waste from nuclear fission.

Let's hope my estimates are accurate as nuclear fusion is the real answer to all of our energy needs.

Indirectly all of our energy is already provided for by nuclear fusion going on in the sun because virtually all of Earth's energy originates with the sun (some does originate from gravitational pull of the sun and moon but that is a very small fraction of the energy we receive from the sun's nuclear fusion).

 

As I understand it, nuclear "originates" from the sun that went Nova. That powers nuclear power plants and geothermal steam.

Tidal from the sun and moon come from solar system formation (same material as the sun, but will exist long after the sun fades, except for that expanding and melting everything past Mars thing)

Solar (first generation), wind (second generation), and wave (third generation) comes from the sun.

 

What America needs now is a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a nuclear power plant in every backyard.

 

You don't need a nuclear power plant in every backyard. Just replace the radio-active spewing coal plants. Nuclear power plants emit 0 radiation and their spent fuel can be re-processed to be used again.

 

Actually with pebble bed reactors becoming smaller and safer that's not that outlandish an idea. I wouldn't mind one, and I still want my nuclear car

 

Nuclear fusion is the endgame but we are easily 50 years out if not 100 years out. They literally just got their first sustained reaction which provided a surplus of energy (only lasted a few milliseconds) not that long ago and that was with a monstrously expensive internationally funded project. It took the US throwing massive amounts of resources to get nuclear fission practical and fission is infinitely easier to achieve than fusion. Take factors such as testing and licensing (this alone could take several years just like it does with each and every nuclear fission plant built today) and economy of scale into consideration and you won't see wide use of fusion reactors till the 22nd century. They simply cost far more than a traditional fission plant because they require significantly more advanced technology.

Thorium reactors are the way to go and the Gen three reactors are designed to last 60/120 years. 60 years first run and an additional 60 years after refurbishment compared to the previous gen designed for 40/80.